Futility
by CeriseTears
Summary: Riko can't take it anymore. She doesn't have anything and she's realized that she will never be able to get Keita. One-Shot. Rated T for language and triggers.
1. Chapter 1

An alarm clock sounded.

_Brrrrring! Brrrrring!_

Riko stirred in her bed. She moaned, and stretched out to where she thought the alarm clock was, batting lazily at the air until her hand landed on the alarm, silencing the machine.

"Uhn..."

Riko rolled around for a couple minutes trying to untangle herself from her bed sheets, and eventually found herself on the floor, out of bed. She stood up and lurched out of her room, unconsciously dragging some of the bedsheets off of the mattress.

Riko yawned, and turned towards Keita's room. She didn't have to check the time to know that Keita was still asleep, that was why she had set her alarm! Riko giggled as she put her hand on Keita's doorknob. Maybe this time she could persuade him to let her taste his penis, let her swish her tongue all around his hard dick as he gasped in ecstasy... Riko moaned in pleasure, before quickly covering her mouth. She couldn't wake anyone up.

Riko reached for the doorknob, blinked, and then frowned. The door was already open, meaning one thing; Ako had beaten her to Keita. Riko stood there fuming, clenching her hand around the doorknob so tightly that it started digging into her hand. Unfortunately, she welcomed the pain.

See, Riko was depressed. She had been for a couple of months now, ever since Yuzuki had become Keita's girlfriend. After Keita had started dating his teacher, Riko had realized a very uncomfortable truth.

_I'm worthless._

Riko was shocked at first when she thought of this. Worthless? Nonsense. She had bigger breasts than Ako, she could make Keita come very quickly, of course she wasn't worthless. She could do stuff.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that getting Keita was impossible. She would never be able to, seeing as all of Keita's other 'candidates' had a lot more than she. Ako could cook. Miharu and Yuzuki had huge breasts. And Mikazuki was, one could argue, far more bold and smarter than she.

There was no reason for Keita to choose her. He, no matter who he picked, would always be better off without Riko.

And so Riko had done what she had considered the obvious solution to distract her. She had started cutting.

She didn't cut every day, usually about twice a week. But she would never let the scars on her wrist go away, opening them up whenever nobody was around to hear her cry. She would go into the bathroom and wail, slicing skin off and pouring blood into the sink. Sometimes she would be there for an hour, not even cutting, just crying to her mocking reflection in the mirror.

When she was done, she would wash off the knife, reapply her makeup, and go into the kitchen, hoping to make something to rival Ako's cooking.

It was usually a failure. She was never surprised; she _was _worthless after all.

But Riko was hoping that this morning, she would be able to prove that wrong by having some form of sex with Keita in the morning. She had gone to bed early, set her alarm, practiced on a doll that she kept in her closet, everything! But Ako must have set her alarm clock earlier so that she could get to Keita first! Then Ako and Keita could catch up on rest by falling asleep in the same bed, sleeping together.

Blinking back tears, Riko threw the door open, screaming into the room, "Ako, you fucking pervert! Get out from the bed and leave Keita alone!".

But there was no answer, leaving Riko confused and annoyed. She flicked on the light and strode over to the bed, throwing the covers off the bed, already saying, "Keita, whatever you did to Ako, I can do it ten times better, don't worry...".

But there was nobody in the bed but air, making Riko frown in confusion as she dropped the covers on the floor. "But... Where?"

Riko looked around the room, and her gaze fell upon the clock, which read 7:30.

Riko jumped. She had to go to school in five minutes. Screaming, she raced out of the room, bolting into her room and hurriedly putting on her school uniform.

_She must have pushed my alarm clock ahead so that she could get her sleep, and then gone to sleep with Keita! Damn you, Ako, Damn you!_

Riko blinked back tears as she ran out of the house, not bothering to grab her breakfast as she didn't have time. She ran as fast as she could to school, upset with an Ako who was a mile away, at school.

Riko rushed into the classroom and practically fell into her desk just as soon as the bell rang. Everyone else in the classroom moved to their seats, not noticing as Riko took out a tissue to wipe of the tears from her face. She fumed silently as the class began, and although the topic was something that Riko was quite good at, sex ed, she took no notice of it as she blinked furiously, trying to make sure she didn't burst out crying.

_What did Ako do? Did she just kiss him and wake him up? Did she get into bed with him and they slept together? Or did she- Did she-_

A loud sob came from Riko, and everyone in the class spun around, startled. Riko gave a weak little smile. "Allergies," she said.

And class continued, with Riko trying to form a plan as to how she could get Ako back, but everything she thought of was either too public or too risky. Riko almost started sobbing, she really was worthless. She couldn't even come up with something, anything to do to get Keita back for her.

The bell suddenly rang, and Riko almost jumped out of her seat. She quickly picked up her bag and dashed out of the classroom, prompting confusion from the teacher, who had been very intimidated the entire class from having one of the disciplinary squad members glaring in what appeared to be her direction for the entire class period.

Riko wandered through the halls, wondering what to do. She suddenly came across a classroom that was empty, and it appeared that nobody had been there for a while. She walked into the room and closed the door, checking to see if it would lock. It did, prompting her to grin in satisfaction despite her bitter mood. She would get Keita into the classroom, and she could do thing to him that Ako could never dream of.

Riko rubbed her hands in anticipation, and sped off to find Keita.

Eventually Riko did find Keita, talking to one of his classmates. When the two of them saw, The reactions were basically what Riko had expected; Keita looked surprised, while the other classmate nearly fainted in joy. He walked up to her and started trying to flirt with her, saying he'd take her out on a date, whatever she wanted.

Riko just ignored him, and went straight for Keita.

"R-R-Riko!What are you doing here!"

Riko grinned, and grabbed Keita's hand. "C'mon. We need to talk."

And before he could protest, Riko was dragging Keita along the hallway towards the deserted classroom, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the hallway.

"That Keita, he's so lucky..."

"Always getting it on with his sisters..."

"Pervert..."

But Riko ignored all of this and eventually reached the room and after entering, slammed the door shut, locking it.

Keita got up off the floor, blinking a couple of times to get his bearings. "Riko, what's going on?" He went for the door, but Riko jumped in front of it, frowning at him. She figured that she'd act mad, and 'punish' Keita for it, in some sexual way. Riko steadied herself.

"Keita, what did you do with Ako this morning?" 

Keita frowned. "Um... Nothing, in fact.

Riko grinned, and took a step closer. "Don't lie, Keita. I know you were with her this morning. Your door was open, and the bedsheets were all rustled. What'd you do, mister?"

"No, seriously. Actually, I only saw Ako when we walked to school together."

Riko suddenly broke character as her eyes widened. "What? Why didn't you wait for me?"

"Ako said that you must have already gone ahead. We figured you had a disciplinary meeting or something."

_She must have wanted to walk with Keita by herself._

Riko blinked furiously. "But... Why was my alarm going off two hours later than I had set it? Didn't Ako do that?"

Keita sighed, and put his hands on Riko's shoulders. "Riko, you know that alarm clock hasn't worked in years. It always rings a couple hours later than you set it. Remember?"

Riko did remember, and she had to lean against the door to steady herself. How could she have been so stupid; she _knew _that that alarm didn't work, that's why she normally didn't use it, and hoped that she wold wake up at the right time. But as soon as she decided to make an effort to be worth something, to show that she actually mattered, it was shoved down her throat.

A bell rang, and Keita gently pushed Riko aside. "Riko, I'm leaving. I'm late for class."

And with that, Keita was gone. Riko barely noticed him leave, slumping to the cold floor, tears falling out of her eyes for being wrong.

And even though part of her was happy, part of her was saying that at least Ako hadn't done anything to her, Riko didn't care. She cried and cried, pulling at her hair as hard as she could as her sobs echoed through the classroom, never leaving her, digging into her sharper than any blade she had cut with.

_I can't do this anymore._

_I can't._

_Because I'll obviously fail._


	2. Chapter 2

Riko got home from school, and closed the door.

"Hello?"

No answer. This made sense, as Keita had track until six, Ako wasn't getting home until seven due to student council issues, and Riko's parents were at work.

Riko glanced at the clock. 4:30.

Disappointing.

Riko set down her backpack and trudged into her room, locking the door behind her. She flopped down onto her bed and sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"I wish Keita were here."

But Keita was not, and Riko sobbed as she reached under her bed and pulled out a knife. She sat there for a couple minutes, silently sobbing as she gazed at her twisted reflection in the blade.

_There I am. In all my nothingness._

Today had been an especially bad day for Riko, because of what had happened to Riko in the classroom. She had stayed there for the rest of the day, not bothering to eat lunch, not bothering to go to class, simply locking the door and wailing in an empty desk. And nobody came to disturb her, and she disturbed nobody. And now, she figured, she needed punishment, and she needed to forget. Punish heer disturbance of Keita, of the class, of her mind. Forget her worthlessness, her mistakes, her loss.

_Punishment. Of course._

Riko's hand shook as she rolled up her sleeve, exposing the five parallel lines that were herpast incisions. As she stared at them, she got a frightening sense of nostalgia and sadness, crashing over her like a tidal wave.

_I don't have anything._

Riko touched the knife to the edge of a scar. She slowly raked the knife across her wrist, peeling off the skin, drawing blood, relishing the pain.

_I'm nothing._

She quickly attacked the next scar, crying and weeping in pain and sorrow, weeping for her fantasies of Keita that she knew were just that; fantasies.

_Delusions of grandeur._

Beads of sweat popped up on her face as she sliced again. And again.

_I'm worthless._

And again.

_I don't mean anything._

And again.

_I have nothing._

She sliced and cried, forming her own torture, her punishment for having nothing. She had forgotten about forgetting, realizing that cutting was her way of escape and that it was the only thing that mattered. Only the knife and her blood mattered, and she continued trying to make them matter more, tying to forget about how worthless she was.

_Nothing._

A cut.

_Nothing but my blood._

A cut.

She had made around twenty cuts by this point, most of them in the same spot, but still she sliced, her hand shaking so badly that sometimes she would slash air, frantically going back and forth in her journey to cause pain.

_No._

Riko's eyes flashed as she suddenly plunged the knife into her palm, drawing a fresh spurt of blood that spilled onto her school uniform and caused her to clench her hand instinctively. Riko sobbed again, and forcefully opened her hand again, carving out a broken heart around the fountain of blood.

_I can't have Keita. _

The knife fell from Riko's hand as she relinquished it, curling up into the fetal position and screaming, screaming until her throat would surely erode from anguish, from depression.

_Let it. I don't care. _

For so long, Riko had been seeking Keita's love, hoping to marry him, to be his lover forever. What a grand illusion it had all been! If Keita loved her, he would have chosen her by now! But he had just skirted around her, choosing to be with that bimbo teacher instead of her.

_And why shouldn't he? She has way more assets than I do._

Riko was rolling around her bed now, getting specks of blood all over the sheet, uncaring. She stopped, gazing at her body in the mirror she hung in her room. Her eyes instantly went to all the imperfections she knew Keita would hate: her small breasts, her freckled cheeks, her askew hair.

Her eyes of insanity.

_No!_

Riko screamed again as she picked up the knife and ran into the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were wild, her uniform covered in blood.

_Fuck the uniform. _

"It was me! Wasn't it? Wasn't it?"

Riko stared into the mirror, expecting an answer from her weeping reflection. But her reflection had the same answer she had, and this just threw her father down the pit of insanity.

"No! It was! It _was_!"

Riko did even know what _was _her, but it must have been her fault. Her own worthlessness must have caused it. And therefore she _knew _ it was her, but the mirror kept taunting her, not giving her an answer, leaving her to doubt her own answer, but it was her, it must have been, it _must-_

_No!_

In one fluid movement, Riko ripped off the band-aid on her cheek, ripping it into shreds and throwing them all into the sink. Her scar shone dully, finally seeing the light of day at last.

"I thought I could get Keita? I thought that with a _band-aid _I could get Keita? I'm a fucking idiot, aren't I?"

Riko cackled as she brought up the knife and slashed at the scar, reopening the cut and causing blood to cascade down her cheek.

"It was me! Wasn't it?"

Another slash, this one deeper than the last.

"Wasn't it?!"

Another slash.

"Wasn't it?!"

Riko almost collapsed, dropping the knife and steadying herself on the bathroom counter. Her hair was in her eyes, and she made no effort to brush it out.

_I need to die._

It was obvious, Riko figured. The world needed to be rid of her worthlessness, and she was sure nobody would care. Her parents were never around, Keita had a girlfriend, and Ako wold just be happy that there was one less 'competitor' for Keita.

Riko bent down and picked up the knife. She set it gently onto the counter, and then took the top of her school uniform off, leaving her in her blue bra and bloody skirt.

_I look ugly. _

As she was taking her bra off, a door opened downstairs, and shut. "Riko? I'm home!"

_Keita._

Riko hurriedly tossed her bra onto the counter, wanting to get her suicide done before Keita could stop it and preserve her uselessness. But she could hear him coming up the stairs even as she positioned the knife over her heart, below her breast.

"Keita, don't come in here! I'm in the bathroom."

Silence. Then, "Riko? Are you okay?"

Riko shut her eyes, and steeled herself. "Keita?"

She heard his pace quicken. "Riko? Don't move!"

"Keita, I love you. I always have."

Riko heard footsteps in the doorway, and spun to see Keita in the doorway, staring at her. She must have looked awful, blood everywhere, topless, her hair every which way.

Keita gasped, and leaped at her. "Riko! NO!"

Riko smiled, and closed her eyes. "I'm not worthless anymore."

And the blade plunged into her heart, sending a spray of blood and tears everywhere.

In her last moments, Riko stared at Keita, his eyes leaking emotion, his mouth moving soundlessly. He bent own beside her and picked her up, running out the door, but Riko knew that it was too late.

But she didn't mind.

_I did it. I'm not worthless. _

_I did something right._

Keita was starting to fade, a sea of red and black crawling in from the corners of her vision.

_Not a bad last sight._

_Good luck, Keita. _

_Goodbye..._


End file.
